AMD presents Kaveri and ups the ante on APU performance

AMD’s Kaveri is the latest generation of APUs (Accelerated Processing Unit), and was first introduced back in January with several desktop parts. Now, it’s time for the mobile space.

The new family of APUs brings a number of improvements compared to last year’s Richland (here’s a very good article by Anandtech explaining the differences from the desktop launch back in January, check it out if you are interested) – but will it be enough for AMD to go up against Haswell? First of all, here’s the lineup:

Two things stand out from these tables. First of all, there are FX processors available for notebooks, which is a first for AMD. As you probably know, the FX is AMD’s performance line of processors, so that definitely means something. Second, there’s an AMD Pro line of APUs, which targets business customers – AMD promises commercial stability and management, plus that these will remain available for an extended period of time. This is a plus for businesses, since they won’t have to validate new hardware for a few more years. We also have a feature differentiation here; things like Eyefinity and TrueAudio support will be limited to the A10 and FX APUs which are considered more performance/enthusiast oriented. Likewise, the A6 line will lose Dual Graphics functionality but gain ARM TrustZone support; something the other processors do not have.

As far as performance is concerned, first benchmarks are encouraging, with AMD APUs giving you great performance in their respective price range; you can head here for some hard numbers. All in all, it seems AMD has got a very good offering, and with Kaveri laptops coming out the following months, they should fare rather well against their competition. I will leave you with the press release:

TAIPEI, Taiwan — COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2014 — June 4, 2014— AMD (NYSE: AMD) today introduced its new 2014 Performance Mobile APUs designed for ultrathin and high-performance mobile PCs, bringing the features and capabilities of the popular and powerful AMD A-Series APU family (codenamed “Kaveri”) to power-efficient notebooks for both personal and professional use. The new mobile APUs mark the debut of Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) features and Graphics Core Next (GCN) Architecture for mobile devices, establishing them as AMD’s most advanced mobile APUs to-date. Notebook and desktop systems powered by AMD’s entire 2014 APU lineup, including systems from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba and others also debuted at COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2014.

“AMD takes a major step forward today on our journey to transform and enhance the computing experience with the launch of the 2014 Performance Mobile APU family,” said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Business Unit, AMD. “With a combination of superior total compute performance, stunning graphics and efficient power use alongside industry-first technologies, these new APUs set a new bar for cutting-edge consumer and commercial PCs.”

The announcement of the 2014 Performance Mobile APU family features AMD’s first FX-branded enthusiast-class APU for notebooks, and follows the recent introduction of AMD’s 2014 Low-Power and Mainstream APUs.

Introducing AMD PRO

Responding to the needs of an evolving commercial marketplace for longevity, performance and stability in enterprise systems, AMD has introduced a professional line of the Performance Mobile APUs. Designed especially with business in mind, AMD PRO A-Series components offer outstanding stability and longevity, and enable open, industry-standard DASH manageability.

Up to 12 Compute Cores (4 CPU + 8 GPU)[i] deliver amazing performance and responsiveness, bringing to life the full capability of the APU on various workloads and applications

The breakthrough new Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) allows the CPU and GPU to work together in harmony by quickly dividing and directing the right tasks toward the appropriate cores for new levels of performance and efficiency in consumer and commercial desktop and notebook PCs, thus enabling a new era of compute capabilities with compute cores

A10-APU: Up to 50 percent better graphics performance[vi] and more than 1.2x the compute performance[vii] versus Intel i5-4200U (“Haswell”)

FX APU: Up to 58 percent better graphics performance[viii] and more than 1.13x the compute performance[ix] versus Intel i7-4500U (“Haswell”)

FX APU: Up to 40 percent more graphics performance-per-watt[x] than our previous generation

FX APU: Up to 30 percent more system compute-per-watt[xi] than our previous generation

About AMD

AMD (NYSE: AMD) designs and integrates technology that powers millions of intelligent devices, including personal computers, tablets, game consoles and cloud servers that define the new era of surround computing. AMD solutions enable people everywhere to realize the full potential of their favorite devices and applications to push the boundaries of what is possible. For more information, visit www.amd.com.

1. 12 Compute Cores (4 CPU + 8 GPU) A Compute Core is a hardware block (CPU, GPU or other processing element) within an HSA-enabled APU, that is programmable, capable of performing computational tasks, has access to entire system memory, and can queue workloads to other cores. For more visit amd.com/ComputeCores. Note: The following must be used on the same page as the claim: *4 CPU + 8 GPU. See amd.com/ComputeCores for details.

Additional hardware (e.g. HD or 4K monitor, USB, 3.0 ports, wirelessly enabled HDTV) and/or software (e.g. multimedia applications and/or wifi access) are required for the full enablement of some features. HD/4K Video display requires an HD/4K video source. Not all features may be supported on all components or systems – check with your component or system manufacturer for specific model capabilities and supported technologies. * For more information on AMD features and software go to www.amd.com/featuredetails.

AMD TrueAudio technology is offered by select AMD Radeon R9 and R7 200 Series GPUs and select AMD A-Series APUs and is designed to improve acoustic realism. Requires enabled game or application. Not all audio equipment supports all audio effects; additional audio equipment may be required for some audio effects. Not all products feature all technologies—check with your component or system manufacturer for specific capabilities.